"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
For as long as I can remember I had a fear of a power other than good taking over my thinking. In the country where I grew up, belting and punishment were normal, and fear of punishment was always there. It was a cultural thing, not a matter of cruel parenting, but it left me with fear overshadowing my life. I was sometimes overcome with dread and negativity for weeks on end, and I was easily mesmerized and absorbed by any negative images I saw around me. Over the years I would have help about this, and at times the scene would shift into light, but there was always a latent fear of recurrence.
Recently I was going away for two weeks to help some friends with a project, when this heaviness took over again and nothing seemed to shift it. The whole time I was away I was able to spend long periods studying and praying, in addition to helping my friends. These were very deep times and I yearned to be free. I had the committed, loving support of a practitioner, though it wasn’t easy for me to be in touch with her often.
One afternoon I went to a pile of Sentinels in my friends’ home and pulled out one from the middle. I opened it at an article called “Pulling back the curtain on evil.” The whole article was based on the story of the Wizard of Oz and it so clearly exposed the nature of animal magnetism or mesmerism. Three friends were on a journey to see the Wizard, and when they arrived here was this huge image in front of them and they were terrified because they believed it was a real person with power over them. But the little dog, who wasn’t impressed by any of that, trotted over to it and pulled aside the curtain revealing a little man operating a special sound-effects machine to scare them! There WAS NO WIZARD!
This really hit home to me in a wonderful way. I began to see that in reality there WAS no negative pull on my thought. When those suggestions came I could stand still mentally, knowing that there WAS no wicked wizard with power over me. It was only mortal mind’s sound-machine being played with, and nothing to do with me at all. The lesson that week was ‘Unreality’ which affirmed, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
I returned home again, but there was still more work to do. For many more days I prayed and studied, yearning to see that my thought was established and secure. I opened Unity of Good to page 57 where it talks of the woman who touched Jesus in the crowd. It says, “His pure conscious was discriminating and rendered his infallible verdict; but he neither held her error by affinity nor by infirmity for it was DETECTED and DISMISSED.” This was indeed the state of thought that I had always yearned to find. Now I started to claim that this spiritual conscious was mine and that NEVER had I been left outside gate beautiful. I was part of this GLORIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS NOW AND ALWAYS.
I saw for the first time the real meaning of Jesus’ words, “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” I had always thought that meant living in fear that something might come along and wreck my peace! NO! I now saw this was instead a promise to me that my weddedness with God, good, could never be put asunder. I reflected the weddedness of the bride and bridegroom qualties which can never be parted or broken down.
Now I feel able to relax and feel at peace, assured of Gods love and care for me. The curtain has been drawn back and I can feel secure and whole, for which I thank God.